


20 Questions

by KatelFireDemon



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Astronomy, Claustrophobia, First Kiss, Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, Pining Keith (Voltron), Soft Keith/Lance (Voltron), Star Gazing, Trapped In A Closet, keith is just so soft towards lance here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:40:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25339255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatelFireDemon/pseuds/KatelFireDemon
Summary: Keith and Lance get trapped in a storage closet together. Lance is claustrophobic. They play 20 Questions.
Relationships: Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Comments: 74
Kudos: 283





	20 Questions

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoy the first of a few short fluffy fics I'm writing! Leave a comment to tell me what you thought! Love ya!

Lance bounced up and down excitedly on the heels of his feet as he chatted with his friends. He had been waiting for this activity for weeks. There was going to be a meteor shower tonight and his college astronomy club had been planning a star gazing activity to go with it. He and his friends were helping Professor Coran, the club advisor, set up.

Lance gestured to the sky emphatically as he told Hunk and Pidge for the hundredth time how excited he was.

“Ah Lance! Thank you for volunteering!” Professor Coran grabbed his raised arm and pulled him over.

“Wait what? I didn’t-” Lance tried to protest. He had no idea what he had just been volunteered for.

Coran continued before Lance could get another word of protest in, “Go to the storage closet in the Space Science building on the second floor and grab the boxes with the star charts and the extra telescope. We’re going to have a big turnout tonight, so we’ll need that old one we don’t use anymore. Keith, you go with him. He’ll need help carrying it.”

“But Professor! I was hoping to stay out here to help set up so I don’t miss any of the shower.” Lance pouted. “Why can’t Hunk or Pidge do it?”

“Because Hunk is grabbing the snacks and Pidge is adjusting the telescopes. And besides, it won’t start to get dark for another hour or two so you won’t miss anything.” Professor Coran grabbed Keith and ushered them both away, calling out, “Oh! Don’t forget, the closet door can only be opened from the outside, so don’t let it close on you!” But Lance and Keith were already too absorbed in an argument about what the best constellation was to pay much heed to Coran’s warning.

“I’m telling you,” Keith said, “The best constellation is the Little Dipper. It has the Polaris, the North Star in it, which sailors have used for thousands of years to find their way, which makes it the most useful!”

Lance scoffed, “It may be useful, but where’s the drama, the story, the romance?! Andromeda and Perseus are totally the best constellations! You have to think about the myths that go with the stars! There’s daring and adventure and saving a damsel in distress!” Lance dramatically raised his hand to his forehead pretending to swoon.

“That’s not fair, you can’t choose two constellations. And you can’t choose it based off romance.” Keith crossed his arms.

“Well you chose a constellation for its usefulness in directions, but Polaris wasn’t even the North Star until like 500 AD and in another couple thousand years it won’t be the North Star anymore!” Lance retaliated.

Keith opened his mouth to defend his choice but couldn’t think of a good argument against that, as well as feeling weak against the twinkle in Lance’s eye as he spouted off stuff he was passionate about. They had finally reached the storage closet and Keith held the door open for Lance. “How do you even know that weirdly specific information about a star’s history when you kept falling asleep in our actual history class?”

Lance strode past Keith into the closet flashing him a smirk as Keith followed behind rolling his eyes. “That is called the power of selective hearing. Now, what was it exactly that we needed to grab? The old telescope and the boxes with the-”

Lance whipped around, “Wait, Keith! Don’t let-” the door swung shut behind Keith. “-the door close…”

“Whoops.” Keith tried to push it open, but it wouldn’t, then he remembered what Coran had said.

“Ugh!” Lance dragged a hand over his face, then held it out. “Give me your phone. I’ll call Hunk to come get us.”

“What? Why can’t you use your phone?”

“Because my battery’s dead. Now give me your phone.” Lance said annoyed. Why did Keith always have to be so difficult?

“I can’t. I forgot mine at home today.” Keith deadpanned.

“What?!?” Lance screeched, “How can you forget your phone?!?”

Keith crossed his arms defensively at the sudden rise in volume of Lance’s voice. “I don’t use it that much, so sometimes I just forget it. What’s the big deal?”

“You’re such an idiot!” At this point Lance was yelling. “How am I stuck with the one person that doesn’t carry his phone with him?!?!”

“This isn’t my fault! Your phone is dead too!” Keith started yelling back. “Besides I’m sure someone will realize we’re missing eventually and come find us.”

At that, Lance gave up berating Keith and turned his energy towards pounding on the door, yelling for help.

Lot of good that’ll do, Keith thought. Nobody hangs around this building at this time. He turned towards the shelves of boxes on the wall. At least while they waited he could occupy himself for a bit by looking for what they had come here for. He started rummaging leisurely through random boxes, they weren’t likely to be found any time soon so he might as well take his time.

After what seemed like a long time, but was probably only ten or so minutes, Keith had already gone through most of the boxes and found the star charts, along with many boxes of random things like old textbooks, a solar system model, and some glow in the dark stars that were probably from last semester’s end of year club party.

Keith started on another box when he noticed it was quiet. Too quiet. Lance had stopped banging on the door. He had probably just tired himself out trying to get someone’s attention. But when Keith turned around, what he found startled him.

Lance was sitting on the ground, his back to the door, knees pulled up into his chest, and his face buried in his hands. He was shaking and seemed to be having a hard time breathing.

Keith dropped to the ground in front of him in a panic. He didn’t know what to do. “Lance? Are you okay? What’s happening?”

“C-claustro-phobic” Lance manages to choke out.

This wasn’t good. Shut in a space like this would definitely trigger something like that, and it seemed like they were going to be stuck there for a while. “Hey, hey, it’s gonna be okay Lance. Try to take some deep breaths. Is there anything that helps?”

“Count- three…” Lance breathed out shakily.

Keith understood and slowly started counting to three again and again, helping Lance even out his breathing. Once he had it somewhat under control he spoke again. “Something to distract helps. Or imagining a different place…”

That gave Keith an idea. “Keep breathing. I’m gonna try something.” He stood and turned towards the shelves, scanning quickly for the box that had the glow in the dark stars. Once he found it he grabbed the side of the shelves and gave them a little shake. It seemed sturdy enough. He hoisted himself up and slowly climbed the shelves. His heart leaped in his chest when it swayed a little, but it stayed upright, so he continued up the last few shelves.

Precariously he reached out and stuck the stars to the ceiling. He tried to make a few constellations he could remember the patterns for, but it was a struggle with his limited range of motion, having to hold onto the shelving unit with one hand so he didn’t fall.

Finally he finished and climbed down. He turned off the light switch and knelt down in front of Lance. His breathing was steadier now, but he was still shaking and curled around himself.

Keith reached out, gently placing his hands over Lance’s and pulling them away from his face. Lance let him and clung to them as if his life depended on it, but his eyes were squeezed shut still.

Keith spoke softly, “Do you trust me Lance?”

Lance took a deep breath and gave a little nod.

“Open your eyes.”

It took a moment, but ever so slowly Lance opened his eyes. He could see a faint outline of Keith in the dark, but little else. Then he looked up and gasped. Momentarily distracted from his claustrophobia, he stared at the ceiling. There were small glowing stars plastered across it. Even though they were stuck in a closet, and the stars were plastic cheesy star shapes, he could almost imagine they were outside under the stars.

He slowly released his death grip on Keith’s hands, which Keith was glad for as his fingers had been losing circulation, but he found his heart dropping in disappointment. Lance’s hands had felt smooth, and warm, and… right.

Keith shook the thought from his head and moved to sit beside Lance with his back to the door. They sat that way in companionable silence for a while, staring up at the ceiling, each lost in their own thoughts, until suddenly Lance’s hand was grasping his again as his breaths came out short and fast.

“Keith! I’m thinking about it again!” He turned panicked eyes towards Keith.

Keith started counting again, instructing Lance to take deep breaths. After a moment he asked, “Would playing a game help distract you? Like 20 questions or something?”

“What are we, middle schoolers?” Lance gives a little breathless laugh, but agrees.

“Okay, so we’ll take turns asking questions about each other until we get to 20. Sound good?”

Lance nodded.

“I’ll start. Hmm… Let’s see… If you were an inanimate object, what would you be?”

Lance laughed, the weird question taking him by surprise. “What kind of question is that?”

Keith smiled and shrugged. “I feel like it gives a good insight into how people see themselves. Now answer the question.”

Lance thought for a moment, scrunching his eyebrows in concentration. “Oh! You know when you’re building a new piece of furniture from Ikea and there’s that one left over screw that you know must go somewhere but you can’t seem to find where it fits? I’d be that screw.”

Keith was a little taken aback by that answer. Did Lance really think of himself that way? That he was just the spare part? “Lance, you-”

“What would you be?” Lance cut him off before Keith could dig into his securities.

“Oh um… I’d be a pair of black jeans. Probably a little worn and maybe with a hole in one knee.”

“Haha of course you’d say something like that.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Keith would have crossed his arms to take up his normal defensive stance, but Lance was still holding onto one from the last time he grabbed it in a panic, and Keith didn’t want to let go.

Lance grinned at him. “Nothing, it’s just something you would say.”

“Okay, well, it’s your turn.”

~

It had been a while and they were down to their last three questions. It seemed that still nobody had noticed they were gone.

Lance was starting to get bored with the mundane questions that had been asked back and forth the last few turns. It was time to spice it up. “Who was your first kiss?”

Keith released an undignified noise. “What?!? Lance you can’t just ask something like that!”

“Aww come on. It’s a perfectly reasonable question to ask a friend! Come on Keith, please?” He goofily made puppy-dog eyes and batted his lashes at Keith.

Keith groaned. “Ugh, fine. It was a kid named Josh in middle school, in the library before class.” He turned his face away in embarrassment momentarily forgetting that the darkness of the closet already concealed his red face.

Lance wiggled his eyebrow, “Mine was in high school with a girl named Sarah, under the bleachers during a game.”

Keith was starting to regret playing this game. His stomach dropped at the thought of Lance kissing someone. But he wanted revenge for Lance asking an embarrassing question, so he had to ask one equally as embarrassing. But what question would embarrass Lance, who didn’t seem to be fazed by anything regarding romance. Suddenly he remembered a moment when he had been walking up to his friends and Pidge had shouted to him “Hey Keith! Guess who Lance has a crush on!” Before Lance’s face turned bright red and he slapped a hand over Pidge’s mouth, and dragged her away.

To be honest, he didn’t really want to know who Lance had a crush on, because he knew he’d be secretly disappointed it wasn’t him. But his need for revenge overpowered it. If Lance wanted to play this way then he’d dish it out as good as it was given.

“Okay, my turn.” Keith bit his lip, hesitating for a second before going ahead with it. “If you could kiss anyone right now, who would it be?”

He held his breath waiting for Lance’s reply. He felt Lance jerk up from his relaxed position next to him. Turning to look to see if Lance was as embarrassed as he hoped he was surprised to see the expression he found on his face.

In the bit of light coming from under the door and the glowing stars, Keith could see that Lance’s eyes had gone impossibly wide and there was a desperate look in them that Keith didn’t understand.

“I-it’s”- Lance stuttered.

Seeing that expression Keith instantly regretted putting Lance on the spot. He turned his head away, not wanting to see that look on Lance’s face anymore. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

Lance’s hand on his shifted and he spoke one word. So softly that Keith almost didn’t catch it.

“What did you say?” Keith asked, turning back to face Lance, not quite daring to believe Lance said what he thought.

Lance steeled his resolve. “You.” He breathed out, not much louder than the first time. His eyes seemed to stare into Keith’s soul.

Keith felt like his heart stopped. “Me?” He whispered.

“You.” Lance confirmed.

Keith held his breath as their heads came closer, moving so slowly he wasn’t sure if they were actually moving closer or they had already been this close before. He could feel the warmth of Lance’s soft breath on his face. Their noses brushed and he saw Lance glance down at his lips.

Just a little bit closer and…

Bright light blinded them as the door opened and they tumbled onto their backs in the hallway. Keith held his hand over his eyes, trying to adjust them to the sudden light. They sat up and saw Hunk towering above them.

Hunk held a hand out to help Lance up, “Sorry it took me so long guys, we were so busy setting up we hadn’t realized you’d been gone for longer than you should. You okay Lance? I know how you get in small spaces.”

Lance grabbed Hunk’s hand and sprang up laughing nervously, “Yeah, we- I- we’re totally fine!” His voice seemed to be higher than normal. He hugged Hunk, “Thanks for rescuing us buddy!” then he dove into the closet, grabbing one of the boxes they had originally come for and called over his shoulder as he raced down the hallway, “Better get these back to Coran!”

Hunk raised an eyebrow in confusion as his friend rushed off. Then he turned to Keith, who was still sitting stunned on the ground, holding a hand out to help him up. Hunk took one look at Keith’s dazed face, glanced at Lance’s quickly retreating back, then back to Keith.

Realization dawned on his face and he broke out in a grin. “He finally told you huh? Well what are you waiting for?” He pushed Keith in the direction Lance had disappeared.

Keith continued to stand in stunned silence for a minute. Lance… wanted to kiss him… Lance… had almost kissed him… Lance… Lance! Keith’s brain finally finished processing and he grabbed the rest of the stuff they had been sent to retrieve and sprinted after Lance.

~

He finally arrived at the field they were setting up on and frantically looked around. There was the box Lance had grabbed sitting by a table filled with food, but no Lance.

He scanned the small crowd that was slowly gathering for the activity, but still couldn’t see Lance anywhere. Oh! There was Pidge fiddling with a telescope. Maybe she’d know where Lance had gone. He needed to give her the old telescope he had grabbed anyways so she could set it up.

As he approached, without looking up from the knob she was fiddling with she said “Don’t know where Lance is. Ran off as soon as he dropped the supplies off.”

Keith set the telescope down and ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. Why had he run off?! They had been so close! Did he run off because he was embarrassed? Or maybe he decided he didn’t actually want to kiss Keith… The thought made his heart drop. He hoped that wasn’t the case.

Pidge’s voice roused him from his thoughts. “I’m sure he’ll be back. He’s been talking about tonight nonstop for weeks. He wouldn’t miss it. Even if he is embarrassed about telling his crush he likes him.”

Keith’s head shot up, his eyes met with a sly smile from Pidge.

“Now stop moping Romeo and help finish setting up.”

Keith gave a begrudging sigh and started setting out blankets around the field for people to sit on. He hoped Lance would come back soon.

~

An hour later everything was set up and people were spreading out to watch the sky, eyes peeled for the first meteor.

Still no Lance.

Keith gave a frustrated groan. Maybe Pidge was wrong. Maybe Lance wasn’t coming back. He wandered resignedly through the maze of blankets with his own wrapped around his shoulders, looking for a good place to sit.

That’s when he saw him. A lone person sitting on a blanket on the outskirts of the group. It was hard to tell for sure in the dark, but the tilt of his head was so obviously Lance. The way he looked to the sky as if he would give anything to be up there among the stars.

Keith moved closer to him and hesitantly plopped down on the blanket beside him. He heard Lance catch his breath, but he didn’t talk. Didn’t invite him to stay. But… didn’t tell him to leave either.

They sat that way in silence for a while, staring up at the stars. The meteor shower hadn’t started yet. Keith almost felt like they were back in that closet looking up at his sky of plastic stars. After what seemed like forever Keith turned towards Lance to talk, but it seemed that Lance had the same idea and they ended up talking over each other.

Keith gave an awkward laugh. “You first.”

Lance took a deep breath and a rush of words came spilling out, “I’m so so sorry Keith, I didn’t mean to put you on the spot in the closet and I didn’t want to tell you that way, honestly I wasn’t planning on like ever telling you because I know you don’t feel the same way and I didn’t want to ruin our friendship because I don’t know what I would do if you stopped being in my life and I still don’t want to ruin our friendship, I’m so so so sorry please can you just forget what happened in the closet so we can go back to being friends?”

Lance looked at him with such a pleading gaze as his words came spilling out that Keith was taken aback, but he quickly collected himself and moved his hand on top of Lances, slowly stroking his thumb along the top of it. He looked into Lance’s shocked eyes as he glanced down at Keith’s hand in surprise.

“I don’t want to forget Lance.”

Lance continued to stare at him in shock, his brain seemingly having a hard time processing what that meant.

“You know, we never finished our game. You still have one question left.” Keith spoke softly, pleading silently for Lance to understand and ask him.

This seemed to break Lance out of his shocked stupor. A slow grin spread on his face. He grabbed onto the blanket draped over Keith’s shoulders and gently tugged him closer.

“Kiss me?”

Keith answers by closing the gap between them as the first meteors shoot across the sky.

**Author's Note:**

> Leave a comment with what inanimate object you are! I’m a tall living room lamp!


End file.
